“The Weird of Hali” is a fantasy story, or rather weird tale, in seven
books by John Michael Greer. The concept is simple, yet fascinating: what if
the monsters from H P Lovecraft´s horror stories (such as Great Cthulhu or the
Crawling Chaos) turn out to be the *good* guys? To say that the novels are a
wild ride would be to underestimate the case considerably! The last book in the
series in particular, “Arkham”, does everything it can to out-weird the weird
pulp fiction it´s freely based on. Not a moment goes by without the hero being
chased by “negation teams” to the far corners of time, space and (perhaps) New
England, encountering creatures you didn´t think existed even in the Old Solar
System of Vintage Scy Fy. It´s fun – if you´re in on the joke. And yes, John
Michael Greer actually lives in Providence, Rhode Island!
From a purely literary viewpoint, “The Weird of Hali” is very uneven. “Dreamlands”
is the best book in the series. “Innsmouth”, “Chorazin” and “Arkham” are somewhere
in the middle. “Kingsport”, “Providence” and “Red Hook” are more boring. Especially
“Kingsport”. Still, you probably have to devour all seven volumes of this unpredictable
saga if you really want to “get it”. One reason for the unevenness is that the
author deliberately wants to create a contrast between the everyday life of the
characters and their wild adventures in realms monstrous and squamous. Thus, we
have to read detailed and frankly boring exchanges over dinner tables between the
main protagonistas, with the author describing, again in some detail, what they
were eating. Indeed, the food in the Hali in-universe seems to be delicious even
in the midst of a great depression and near-apocalyptic ecological crisis! Is
Greer secretly a gourmand? The characters have surprisingly normal family and
love lives, although some of them are co-habiting with human-monster hybrids! Every
time some character does library research (and that´s often), the action is stalled
in favor of long laundry lists of usually imaginary books and documents turned
up in the dusty corners of some university archive. (I did this kind of research
myself when I was younger – of course, I wasn´t attacked by a squamous snake-man
afterwards. Also, I usually did it on an empty stomach.)
And now for the positives...
Lovecraft was notorious for his conservative and racist values,
something turned on its head in the Hali universe. Many characters on the good
side are Black, female, mixed race or immigrant. The human-monster
half-breeds of Lovecraft´s stories turn out to be very sympathetic, even
somewhat sexy. The cannibalistic Tcho-Tchos are actually a pro-American hill
tribe from Laos with perfectly normal feeding habits (their culinary interests
are described in some detail). The race of the humans working for the evil
Radiance is never explicitly described (I think), suggesting that they are
White. Another notable feature is that many of the humans working on the good
side are typical outsiders. The story features an asexual witch, a flamboyant
homosexual suspended in the Dreamlands, a teenager with Asperger´s syndrome, a
man who looks like a sasquatch due to a genetic disorder, and so on. Some of them
are nicer versions of characters from Lovecraft´s stories. In the original
Lovecraft universe, deviancy was a sure sign of degeneracy, and presumably of sheer
evil as well. In Greer´s version, the story is borderline “identity politics”,
which is funny, since I happen to know that the author is somewhat skeptical of
such things IRL.
The main point of “The Weird of Hali” is, as already mentioned, that the
Great Old Ones from Lovecraft´s fiction aren´t really evil. They are simply
pagan gods. The dark cults worshipping the Eldritch are not the abominations
described by the Providence horror writer, but simply latter day pagans doing
what pagans have always done: soothsaying, cartomancy, ritual magic,
meditation, idol worship, and so on. The sacrifices offered to Great Cthulhu
turn out to be pretty innocuous, such as sea shells! The real evil comes from the
Radiance, a “scientific” brotherhood with roots in ancient Babylonia.
Exoterically, the Radiance believes in science, enlightenment, rationalism and
the need for humans to conquer nature. Esoterically, however, the organization knows
that the Great Old Ones exist and seeks to tap their magical powers to further
its real goal: the enslavement of all humanity under one robotic hive-mind. In “Arkham”,
we learn that the rabbit hole goes even deeper. Just like NICE in C S Lewis´ “That
Hideous Strength”, the Babylonian Siblinghood turns out to be controlled by demonic
entities and thus very far removed from the “rationalism” it espouses through
its public front groups. The Radiance has been taken over by the Mi-Go, a race
of fungous crabs from a planet beyond Pluto who is evil in both Lovecraft´s
original stories and in Greer´s alternative versions. The goal of the Mi-Go is
to harvest human brains for unknown but presumably ulterior purposes…
However, it´s also obvious at several points in the story that the Great
Old Ones aren´t “good” in the simplistic “Christian” or secular senses of that
term. Nor are they “gods” in any ontological sense. Rather, the Old Ones are
powerful cosmic beings as far removed from humans on the evolutionary ladder as
humans are from, say, rodents or amphibians. The Old Ones consider Earth their
home, and are usually utterly indifferent to the strivings of humanity. Indeed,
some of them can´t stand us and might even be dangerous if disturbed.
However, many Old Ones can be contacted by humans through appropriate means and
then bestow boons on individuals or entire communities. In this sense, and this
sense only, are they “gods”. Nor are the Old Ones perfect. One of the plot
twists of “The Weird of Hali” is that Great Cthulhu has a conflict with The
King in Yellow, a conflict with terrible consequences for the Earth and for the
human race. Only by healing this 65 million year old quarrel can balance be
restored. It´s also interesting to note that once the Old Ones take possession of
Earth, nothing much happens to the planet itself, except that large portions
revert to wilderness. The pagan gods aren´t interested in helping humanity
create a utopia or a millennium, indeed, humans have to live with the
consequences of their environmental destruction in the form of leaking nuclear
power plants, flooded and abandoned cities, a sharply reduced population, and so
on. (This theme is a constant in both Greer´s “occult” fiction and “secular”
non-fiction. About 10 years ago, the author was very active on the peak oil
scene.)
Still, if you take this author literally, there seems to be enough to do
for 10 lifetimes even in this far corner of the indifferent universe. Earth is really
“lesser Earth” and part of a wider world known as “greater Earth”. If you know
how to access all its dimensions, you might find yourself in places as
far-fetched as they are wonderful. I´m not sure if Greer really believes this,
or if it´s just a literary device (or an allegory for the astral world – the author
is a Druid Revivalist and Golden Dawn occultist). One really weird thing about
these novels is that I found the fantastic and frankly crazy parts *easier* to
believe in than the supposedly more realistic parts. As already mentioned, the
characters have no trouble filling their stomachs or holding their little
family reunions in the midst of a world-wide climate crisis, when widespread famine,
rampant crime and the return of the bubonic plague would be more logical. *This*
sounds more supernatural than all the fantasy action! Lovecraft being reincarnated
as a particularly nice tomcat? A meeting with a resurrected Merlin in the Pine
Barrens complete with a flight on the back of a Jersey Devil? A journey two
billion years into the future, when the last intelligent species on Earth turn
out to be enormous spiders living in underground caverns? Anubis driving a
Batmobile around the New England countryside? Been there, seen that, done that…
I mean this quite un-ironically. I didn´t expect the weird tale aspect
to be the *least* weird in this magnum opus!
Apparently, John Michael Greer has also published a spin-off to “The Weird
of Hali” in two volumes (with a third waiting in the wings, or is it caverns).
The spin-off follows a female would-be composer as she is contacted by musical
shoggoths! Since Greer is a Freemason, may I venture a guess that said
shoggothi love Mozart? Stay tuned (pun intended) for further weird tales with a hidden message…
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